steve segerman owns a record store in cape town. >> steve segerman: to many of us south africans, he was the soundtrack to our lives. if you walked into a random white, liberal, middle-class household that had a turntable and a pile of pop records, you would always see "cold fact" by rodriguez. to us, it was one of the most famous records of all time. >> simon: it was the 1970s, and under apartheid, political repression was at its height. rodriguez's lyrics resonated with people who'd had it with the system. >> rodriguez: ♪ the mayor hides the crime rate ♪ councilwoman hesitates ♪ public gets irate, but forgets the vote date ♪ this system's going to fall soon ♪ to an angry young tune ♪ and that's a concrete cold fact... ♪ >> segerman: we didn't know what the word "anti-establishment" was until it cropped up on a rodriguez song. and then, we found out it's okay to protest against your society, to be angry with your society. >> simon: south africans were buying half a million of his records, and were astonished to learn that no one else in the world had ever heard of him.